


In Common

by Thevetia



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 01:28:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1326685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thevetia/pseuds/Thevetia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the good guys don't win.  Sometimes love isn't enough to fix it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Common

In the end, it was so easy, so obvious, Daniel wondered why he hadn't figured it out long before. 

He was Jack's closest friend, after all. Maybe it didn't make sense that that was so, but Daniel wasn't arguing with the evidence. For a man who had spent all his adult life in the world of male bonding, Jack had remarkably few buddies popping up for that back slapping, have a few beers together sort of thing that other men in his position did. So Daniel accepted it, that whatever Jack had been before, it appeared that now his only life was SGC, his only family was SG1, and his -almost- only friend was Daniel Jackson. 

It gave them something in common. Daniel spent more time than he wanted to admit to himself checking for things he and Jack had in common. This - trickiness with the friendship thing, for example. Daniel knew how that was. Friends, potential friends, were a minefield of false assumptions and expectations. It was disconcerting to negotiate a relationship where most of the information was incorrect. So Daniel tended to keep his distance until he felt he could reliably predict events, and that was usually too long for people to want to stick around. Jack was different, and the same. Jack wanted reliable information too, but he came right out and asked for what he wanted, and there was never a hidden agenda. Jack held himself back too, and that was restful. And there was always that mutual spark, that amazing coincidence of thought and insight, that happened just often enough between them to reassure Daniel that their similarities were real, and that it was their differences that were, maybe, only superficial. 

Jack didn't want earnest heart to heart talks, beer sodden or sober, any more than Daniel did. Jack didn't need a shoulder to cry on, or a pal to shoot hoops with. What it was that Jack did want and need these days, well, Daniel was working on it. Maybe it would be the same thing he did. Daniel wasn't sure he knew what that was either, but that was what Jack was for, to prod him in the right direction. That was what they were for each other. 

And right now, on P4X-822, it was important that Daniel figure it out. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

Daniel was too shocked at first to react. They stood on the steps of the gate looking down over what had been an avenue of trees crossing a park-like enclosure where the Stargate stood, a mysterious but revered object from a mythical past. Beyond it had been a small town of whitewashed buildings and tile roofs. Now there was nothing but blackened stumps, charred earth and smoky ruins. A thin wind blew the sour stink of burning straight into their faces. 

"Okay, everybody, look sharp, " Jack said. "Our welcoming committee should be around here somewhere." 

Daniel drew his sidearm and stepped down cautiously after Jack and Sam. He was aware of SG3 moving behind them in a flanking formation, and of Teal'c's increased alertness. 

They had been here before, nearly four years ago. It had been summer then, the air heavy with heat and humidity and smell of growing things. The high hills beyond the town had been purply with vegetation, and the neat geometric fields a blinding chartreuse green. 

Now it was winter. The hills were gray and white with snow and beyond the ruins the flat fields ran on to the horizon in waves of tawny gray. 

"It's worse than I thought," Sam said as they spread out onto the crackly dead grass around the DHD, weapons cocked and ready. "Major Takashi didn't say anything about the destruction being so - so -" 

"Total?" Jack supplied. "He didn't say much at all beyond 'Come quick,' and 'Watch out.'" 

"The damage patterns are consistent with Goa'uld blast weapons," Teal'c said. "But to cause damage over such a wide area there must have been at least one death glider." 

Behind the nearest ruined wall a figure appeared in familiar SGC khaki. 

"Colonel O'Neill! Quick, dial out!" 

"What?" 

"Dial! Dial anywhere, just keep an outgoing wormhole! Do it!" 

Jack shot a look over his shoulder at Daniel, and Daniel ran back to the DHD and hit up the symbols left handed. The familiar grind of the gate ring and whoosh of the stabilizing wormhole drowned out whatever Captain Harris was yelling across the field. 

He ran up, red-faced, panting, and almost angry in the face of Jack's leisurely approach. 

"Didn't you get the last message? There's been more Jaffa coming through. We've got to keep up that wormhole or we'll be ambushed again." 

"Whoa, slow down there, Captain. How many Jaffa? Where are they now? Our last communication only asked for more backup." 

Harris was barely listening. "We have to get away from here. The wormhole is only good for half an hour, right? We have to get away before it collapses. Now! Come on!" 

"Hold it, Captain! Report! Where's the rest of SG5?" 

"The Major took Olberg and went after Dr. Fahd and the base personnel. He left me and Kohler here to secure the Gate." 

"And where's Lieutenant Kohler?" 

Harris was slowly calming down in the face of Jack's lack of visible anxiety. He shifted into a semblance of normal reporting. "I don't know, sir. That was yesterday. Everything was quiet until this morning when the Gate activated and a whole shitload of Jaffa poured through, and one of those glider things. Kohler and I headed for cover and the Jaffa marched right past, blew the town to bits and then marched back through the gate. I haven't seen Kohler since." 

"Major Griff?" Jack glanced over at him but Griff was detailing some of his men already. SG3 began to fan out through the nearest ruins. 

Harris was still twitchy but no longer looking like he needed to run. Daniel remembered Harris now. He had been with the Gateroom SF for the last year, had been promoted to SG5 when that unit was reformed. This was probably his first off world encounter with Jaffa. 

"Carter, is this going to be a problem? Is there any way to temporarily deactivate this Gate?" 

"The research is still just preliminary, sir. We still don't have any way to pull the plug on the Gate, so to speak, other than by burying it. The only other way to prevent another incursion is to keep up an outgoing wormhole." 

"Okay." Jack looked over the captain again. "We'll dial home and ask for more security for the Gate. We can keep somebody here operating an outgoing wormhole. Harris, you come with us. We'll need you when we find the base staff and SG5." 

Jack glanced over at Daniel. "Daniel, where's this one going? That planet 911 again?" 

"Uh, yeah, P2X-512." They had explored this one several years ago and determined, after an unusually boring week, that it contained absolutely nothing of either interest or danger. There had been a number of times lately where it was vital they gate to a place that was both safe for them and useless to anybody who might glimpse the address. 

"Okay, Harris, I need a full report." 

"The first thing we knew was when one of the scribes came up from town yesterday to tell us that strangers had come through the gate and they wanted to know who we were. The Major and I went for a look-see and recognized them as Jaffa, 7 regulars and one guy with a helmet." 

"A sha'maak," Teal'c said. "A scouting company. They would have left the other 5 to guard the gate. Could you identify their tattoos, Captain Harris?" 

"Uh, no. We were scoping them from cover, too far away. They didn't seem to be doing much, just standing at attention while their leader was talking to Liammak. The Major didn't like it so he sent me back to get the Base staff away to some place safer. We scouted the gate and it was guarded like you said, so we hustled everybody out down the ravine to one of the old watchtowers. A couple hours later the Major came back and told everybody to go with Liammak up river out of danger while SG5 tried to regain the gate. 

"I don't think the Jaffa were expecting attack with modern type weapons. We waited until dark, then set up an ambush. Two got away through the gate, but we got the rest without taking any casualties and dialed the SGC to report." 

Daniel had been in the control room when Major Takashi had reported in. His voice had been tired but crisp. "Our people are out of radio range, so we're going after them to evacuate them home," he'd said. "I'm leaving 2 men to secure the gate but I'm requesting immediate backup." 

SG1 had already been gearing up for their next mission, and SG3 scrambled themselves together in record time to give support. But then for 6 hours they had waited in the gateroom in frustration for an interval when the automatic dialing program could get through to P4X-822. At least now he knew why. 

"Yeah, we heard the report," Jack said. "You were left to secure the gate." 

Harris was trying to stand at ease, but his nervousness was making him fidget. "We saw the ring light up and Kohler and I took up positions from cover. Over there," and he pointed to the small kiosks that flanked the entry into the park. "But there was nothing we could do. There must have been at least 50 of them, they just kept coming down from the gate and sweeping the whole park with those staff weapons like flame throwers. I got a couple of rounds off and then ran for better cover before I was fried. I don't think Kohler made it." 

"That is standard attack practice when advancing through a hostile gate," Teal'c said. "Captain Harris, were you not attending when I explained Jaffa military procedures to the SGC? You should have awaited them at the edge of the gate platform." 

"Give him a break, Teal'c." Jack threw Harris a sympathetic glance. "That's a suicide position. He wasn't asked to stop a goddamn invasion. So they might have taken out the first couple of Jaffa. They'd get him eventually and then we'd have nobody to give us intel." 

Harris looked grateful at that. Daniel and Sam exchanged a look. Harris had probably been shit-scared and run like hell, but Jack had just given him a reason not to think of himself as a worthless coward. Jack and Teal'c should go on TV, he thought. They were really getting slick at the 'good cop, bad cop' routine with SGC rookies. 

"Okay, Captain, continue." 

"Well, I hid in one of the big buildings along the market square. The Jaffa marched straight into town, grabbed everybody they could see and herded them all together there. Then the Jaffa commander told them that this was going to be their first taste of punishment for letting themselves be used by the Tau'ri. They were to tell everyone what they saw so that they would know how to submit to their god Shiva when he arrived. He said he would be arriving soon and they would know who it was because his ships would be bigger than the mountains. Then he told them to run. Everybody ran, and the Jaffa took pot shots at them, like they were trying to wound but not kill. A few of the watchmen had brought their bows and tried to shoot but they were all blasted. Then the Jaffa started blasting the town and I got out of there and worked my way back around to the gate. After a couple of hours the whole unit marched back and through the gate." 

"And when was your last contact with Major Takashi?" 

"Just before the attack, sir. He said he was headed for Panduk and he was going to be out of range." 

"Panduk?" Jack said blankly. 

"It's a village on the other side of the hills, Jack," Daniel said. "Liammak owns a lot of summer grazing up there. He probably thinks it's too unimportant for the Jaffa to notice." 

"How do you remember all this stuff?" Jack scowled. "I can barely remember being here and you can recall everybody's real estate holdings?" 

"We had nearly 6 hours on standby. I reread my notes from our first contact." 

Jack made a face at him, then raised his voice. "Okay everybody, stay loose and we'll do a sweep of the town before we check out the Base." 

They found Kohler's body in the kiosk on the edge of the park. Dead of a blast wound, along with 5 others who had been sheltering there. Jack took his tags and handed them over to Harris, who flinched momentarily, then quickly stowed them in a pocket. 

They moved on into the main street of the town, spread out and on the alert. Even though Daniel had seen other ruined towns and other consequences of the brutality of the Jaffa, it was still hard to take. Four years ago it had been a prosperous, pleasant little market town, reasonably typical of a pre-industrial society. Now there was nothing of significance left. The ornamented buildings surrounding the market square had clearly been special targets of some high-energy weapon. The general mass of houses had been targeted at random, some destroyed completely, others barely singed. Jack climbed the steps to the market hall and ducked into the darkness of the ruined door, then out again, assessing the threat with a few sweeps of his P-90 before crossing to the temple adjoining it. Daniel followed cautiously, while Sam and Teal'c did the same to the opposite side of the square. 

Daniel knew he saw things differently from other people. This was a destroyed town, the buildings of mud brick and stone and tile burnt and shattered. Soon they would fall, or be pulled down, and all their contents buried or smashed or forgotten. The dark bundles of burned and bloody clothing huddled in the corners would be buried with them and slowly decay, leaving only bone and bits of fabric and hair to remember the man or woman or child they once were part of. He was walking through the moment when a site went from living and changing to dead and frozen, and Daniel couldn't help but analyze in reverse what he had been trained to see, storing up the images of fallen walls and stark foundations and luckless dead as a palimpsest over the archeological site it would someday become. 

Jack probably saw it as a map of tactical positions, defensive and offensive. That was his training. Daniel had spent enough time with him to have picked up some of it. These weren't houses and shops and temples and markets, once alive and purposeful, important and loved. Jack's view was similar to his, a 3-D map in time; but with all the color washed out, turned into a chart of positions of danger and safety marked with X's and O's. Both of them had their own way to keep the reality at bay. 

There were survivors in the ruins. Daniel could feel them watching from the dark openings as SG1 and SG3 moved slowly through the streets. When they had been here before the people had been friendly, maybe in hindsight now, too friendly. They had greeted SG1 with mild curiosity and almost no apprehension. They were proud of their town and the Stone Ring, Siuk-sa-Miet, that was its monument and namesake. Liammak, the town's leader, had implied that it was only natural that strangers should finally realize the importance of the Siuk-sa-Miet and want to settle on Jengiau. 

Now they were reduced to fearful shadows. 

"Please. You can come out. We won't hurt you. We can help you." Daniel tried calling several times, but there was no answer. A few hunched dark figures ran across a side street ahead of them, and the soldiers automatically snapped their aim to cover them, but they disappeared around a corner. 

"Careful. Don't shoot the locals," Jack said. "I don't blame them for not coming out." 

"Sir, some of them must need medical help, after destruction like this." Sam pointed around with her weapon. 

"Nothing we can do for them, Carter, if they won't come to us. We'll just have to wait until they do." 

The teams met up in the middle of the square. "Okay, there's nothing here. The Base is our next objective. Harris, you lead the way." 

The Base was outside of town, on a bluff above the river. After four years the quonset huts had lost most of their metallic shine and acquired a patina of tawny dust to match the soil. They had all been exploded open by blast fire. The aluminum shells remaining were edged with burned and melted ash. 

"Not much interested in gathering information, were they?" Daniel said, as they poked through the ruin of the main lab building. The Base's computer systems were piles of melted plastic and metal bits. 

"They knew all they needed to," Teal'c replied. "Tau'ri technology was targeted specifically." 

"So this is just SOP for the Goa'uld?" asked Griff, as he gingerly toed over a broken table. "Or is this what the Jaffa do for R&R?" 

"This was a terror raid. They came to kill and destroy as much as possible, and leave just enough survivors to tell others of what would come." 

"But what's the point?" Griff persisted. He sounded personally ticked off by the Jaffas' un-Marine-like military activity. "Isn't killing potential hosts and scaring the rest away from the gate a bad plan?" 

"Not at all. You have never seen a truly subjugated world. Chulak is a favored home; Kartago, Argos, and others like them, have been mere breeding sites for potential hosts. But this planet has been marked for territorial possession." As they moved out of the ruined lab into the open in front of the buildings, Jack and Sam caught up with them from surveying the perimeter of the ruined base. Teal'c continued with his explanation. 

"The purpose of the raid was terror and destruction, to cow and demoralize the population, as well as to search for and destroy anything that might pose a threat. Anything that looked of importance or value to the inhabitants, and any technology of a level beyond basic subsistence. When the Goa'uld's ha'tac ships come there will be more terror and death, and then there will be rewards for those left alive who submit completely. They will be required to betray those they love as proof, and there will be enough who are dazzled by the Goa'uld's power and splendor that they will do so, and become servile tyrants over their fellow slaves. If this planet has anything of value, then it will be extracted. But even if not, it will be garrisoned, and the remaining inhabitants allowed to live as slaves. Soon they will worship the Goa'uld as a god, as he demands, not because they believe, but because he will have all power of life and death over them." 

Teal'c calm recitation had gradually stopped all activity within earshot of him. There was always something chilling about Teal'c's dispassion when he chose to reveal details about the working of the Goa'uld dominion. 

"Everything we have seen here, everything ever made by the natives of this world will be utterly destroyed. The ruins will be inhabited by only the tortured and the dead, and the survivors will beg to be allowed to serve the Goa'uld." 

"Stop it, Teal'c! We get the picture." Jack was angry. 

Teal'c was relentless. "Do you? You Tau'ri have been searching for friends and allies in the years since you opened the Stargate, for all those strong enough to help the fight against the Goa'uld. But you have never needed to know what life is truly like for those too weak or unlucky to escape." 

"We know enough." Daniel found that he was angry too, though not at Teal'c. "We've seen enough. And we've seen what happened on those alternate Earths." He felt cold suddenly. The wind was picking up, making faint scratchy sounds across the metal shards of the base. 

Jack glared at Teal'c, who merely lifted his chin and remained imperturbable. After a few moments Jack gave up. He twitched his shoulders under his vest as if to settle it and gave one more long look around the dead base. 

"Well, this place is a bust. Not even 'Croatian' carved on a tree. " 

"I think that was 'Croatoan', Jack." Jack switched his glare to Daniel, the one without force behind it. That was better. 

"Whatever. Harris, what's the direct route to Panduk?" 

Harris was looking a bit pale again. Not surprising, as he had been living here for several weeks. "The river road, sir. Straight out of town and up the canyon. About 30-40 klicks from here." 

"Right. Okay, we try Panduk next. Everybody, move out." 

They headed down from the bluff toward the dirt track that ran along the river, pushing through the dead long grasses that covered the slope. A squat stone tower was visible where the road turned away from the river to head into town. Griff and his men went to check it out and returned with nothing to report. 

Jack got on the radio to the men left to guard the gate. "Get Hammond to send a MALP through so we can relay radio. We're going upcountry to find our people and will be out of range." 

The sun was lowering across the dun colored fields, and the cold was noticeable again. There was a thin nagging wind that roiled the dust of the track into irritating coils, getting into Daniel's eyes. He envied Jack's wraparound sunglasses. They were moving at a fast pace, trying to make up for time, and the effort heated them up enough to almost counteract the growing chill in the wind. 

It wasn't long before they passed natives on the road, refugees from Siuk-sa-Miet. They all knew who they were and called out "Tau'ri, Tau'ri!" when they saw them. Most of them made a greeting, clasping their hands with a nod of the head. Daniel returned the greeting, stopping to perform it properly. 

Then he realized why the natives had paused here. The glider had come this way. There were black swaths along the side of the road, and burned dirt in great charred scars across it, and horribly familiar blackened lumps sprawled down on the river side under the skeletons of the trees. Some of the Jengiauns were down under the river bank trying to straighten and cover the bodies. Daniel rushed the rest of the greeting ritual, grateful that the Jengiauns weren't trying to talk to him. 

The others hadn't stopped. Daniel jogged up the road to catch up with them. There were more bodies to pass, some of them right on the road. The glider must have caught the main knot of those fleeing Siuk-sa-Miet. With each body they passed, Jack's face got grimmer and the lines in it etched deeper. 

"What are we going to do?" Daniel asked eventually. 

"We find them, we get them back." Jack's mouth was set in a thin line. 

"No, I mean, later. About the Goa'uld." 

"That's Hammond's business. Not ours. Not yet." 

They kept going until full dark, and stopped to bivouac when the track ran so near the river that the footing was unsteady. 

They were just bedding down when the man on watch called a challenge and warning. Someone was coming from further up the road. They reached for their weapons, but it wasn't more Jaffa. It was Major Takashi. 

"Colonel O'Neill, Major Griff, glad you guys came. I'd given up trying to radio." Takashi was a big man with a naturally dour expression, but now he looked both relieved and tired. He sat down heavily on a boulder near the watch fire. 

"So where is everybody?" Jack asked. 

"They're in Panduk. The situation doesn't look good. Liammak refused to let any of them come back with me. Says it's too dangerous, and he's put guards on them. I thought of taking out the guards but everybody's so nervous after the Jaffa attack that it's too likely there'd be some heavy casualties." 

"Then they're prisoners," said Major Griff. 

"Not exactly." Takashi took a grateful bite out of an energy bar someone had handed him. "They're being treated as guests of Liammak's. He was okay with it when I said I was going to leave to ask for help and reinforcements. He pretty much told me that he'd only let them go when he was convinced he had the strength to hold off the Jaffa." 

"That sounds a lot like blackmail, sir." Trust Sam to articulate the depressing view of things. 

"Or not. Could just be prudence." Jack faced Takashi. "Did he threaten our people at all?" 

"No. But it's his own personal men he's using for a guard. " 

"What's he got for men and weapons?" 

"What everybody has here. Bows, pikes, some muzzle loading muskets, and a ceremonial cannon. He keeps a caravan guard of about 30 trained men, and what's left of the militia from Siuk-sa-Miet, maybe 10 or 12 men, tops. That's it." 

"He cannot hope to withstand any Goa'uld attack with that force." Teal'c spoke from the darkness on the edge of the firelight where he had positioned himself to keep watch. 

"Okay." Jack tapped his fingers against the butt of his P-90. He looked around the circle of grim-faced soldiers, Daniel included. "How far are we from Panduk, Major?" 

"About 20 kilometers." 

"Okay," Jack said again, more slowly. "I'm going to return to the gate and report the new situation to Hammond. It looks like the easiest thing to do is buy our people out with some decent weapons. I should be back in roughly, oh, 12 hours. Teal'c, you come with me. Takashi?" 

"I was planning on heading all the way back to report." 

"Fine. See you guys tomorrow morning some time. If we don't get back before noon, then head on into Panduk without us. Daniel, see what you can do to talk Liammak around." 

The three of them took off into the night, the 6 hours walk back to the gate. 

Daniel had a long night. It wasn't because the ground was hard, his jacket was inadequate to keep out the cold, his muscles were sore and he was still hungry. All that was normal for SG-1 in the field. He'd been in worse physical conditions and slept like a log, filled with contentment and happiness. But here there was nothing but anxiety. They should have got a medical team through the gate before they left. The survivors of the attack would need help. Or sent some of them back to the SGC, if necessary. Of course, they would have had to spend time finding and coaxing them out of hiding. They didn't have time, they had to make plans for the Goa'uld attack. And then Daniel's thoughts shied away and went back to wondering what had happened to their people, and whether the gate was still under their control, and the whole round started up again. 

When it was light enough to see and there was no point in dozing anymore he got up and went down to the river to wash and wake up. There was ice scumming the rocks at the river's edge. 

Jack and Teal'c came back three hours after sunrise, moving not quite so fast as when they had set out. Their faces and clothes were gray with dust. Jack dropped himself down in the dirt of their campsite, his expression unreadable for the dust that caked his face. He took a swig from his canteen and Daniel handed him another, which Jack poured over his head, spreading the dust into muddy streaks down his face. 

"Our orders are to get our people home safely as quickly as possible, by whatever means possible." Jack closed his eyes for a moment, then dug a bandanna out of his pocket and began scrubbing his face. 

"How? I mean, didn't you go to get something to bargain with?" 

"I'm authorized to use force as a last resort. 'But it is sincerely hoped that a diplomatic solution will be found.'" Jack's verbal quote marks were almost too subdued to hear. "Our priorities are 'safely' first, then 'quickly'." Jack looked around at Griff and Harris and the rest of SG3. "We don't have time to get a stock of weapons up here. We'll have to talk them into it." 

Griff looked skeptical but nodded. "We can be ready to go in 15, Colonel." 

"Make it 30. I need breakfast." 

Griff nodded and went away with SG3. 

"I don't get it, Jack. Why no help?" 

"They've written this place off. SOP. End of story." Jack was looking way too unconcerned to be real. 

"And then?" Daniel pushed. 

"There is no 'and', Daniel." Jack looked at him levelly. "That's it. We're pulling out of here completely. We won't be coming back." 

Daniel kept pushing, because he knew that he wasn't going to like what Jack was trying hard not to spell out. "So what are we going to provide the Jengiauns?" 

"Nothing." 

"We're just going to abandon them? Walk away? At the very moment they're expecting a full scale Goa'uld attack?" 

"Not much else we can do." Jack draped his arms across his knees, his hands dangling, and bent his head and rolled his neck a few times. 

Daniel was so angry he couldn't speak, words tumbling over themselves and refusing to sort into logical structures. "And what are we going to tell them? Just 'so long, and thanks for all the fish?'" 

Even Sam raised an eyebrow at that. Jack didn't look up. 

"I don't know yet," he said eventually. "You'll think of something." Jack began rubbing at his boot tops, scraping off the dirt. 

It all unrolled in Daniel's head. Jack looked up at him, and there was an instant of total mutual comprehension. 

"You want me to - There's no way in hell I'm going to do that!" Daniel exploded. "I'll tell Liammak the whole thing is a cowardly, despicable betrayal! He deserves to know as soon as we get there. I'll --" 

"No you won't." 

"Why not?" 

"Liammak's no fool. That's why he marched everyone off to 'safety', in order to get as many hostages as possible. You tell him we're abandoning him and he could cut the throats of everybody from the base." Jack was very quiet. Daniel's anger wasn't even striking a spark off him. "We just have to persuade him it's a good idea to let them go." 

"How? Tell him there's nothing to worry about? That the Goa'uld aren't coming back? That they're only a minor threat? Or tell him he can come back with us?" Jack didn't say anything. Daniel's heart turned to lead. He realized that he had already agreed to Jack's plan. "Suppose he's a real patriot and doesn't want to abandon his people? What if he's holding our people in order to make us fight with him?" 

"You've met him. You tell me how likely that is." Jack seemed genuinely curious to know Daniel's opinion. That threw him. When they had first made contact 4 years ago Jack and Liammak had gotten along like old buddies. They seemed to like each other. 

Daniel had nothing to say. He looked down, then up at Sam and Teal'c standing with slightly shocked looks on their faces. 

Jack took a deep breath, and caught Sam's eye. 

"Major Carter." 

"Sir." Sam brought herself slightly to attention. 

"You heard the orders. This is a rescue and recovery operation for SGC personnel. Only." 

"Understood, sir." Sam was trying very hard not to show what she was feeling. 

"Teal'c. You know better than anyone what's going to happen here. I have no right to order you, heck, I can't even ask you to lie to these people. Just, if anybody asks you a direct question about what we're going to do, could you try to be as inscrutable as possible?" 

"I will say that I am not the one who gives commands." 

"Not good enough. It sounds like you're being purposely evasive, and that's as good as saying you know we won't be doing squat but can't say so." 

"As is, indeed, the case, O'Neill." Teal'c managed to make it sound as if he was saying, 'up yours'. 

Jack barely flinched. "True. But our job right now is to save those we can. We haven't got the resources to protect this planet. If you want you can think of it as a strategic withdrawal from an overextended position." 

"Then if anyone asks me what we are planning to do, I will say that after five years of fighting alongside the Tau'ri, it is my understanding that they do not abandon their allies and friends." Teal'c paused to see if Jack would make any reply, but Jack had put on his coldest command face. Teal'c turned and walked away, and after a moment, with a look of apology, so did Sam, both leaving Daniel to what had all the signs of being a particularly nasty argument with Jack. 

"You don't have to say it, Daniel." Jack rubbed at his face with his t-shirt, though the mud and dust was mostly gone. He hunched over his drawn up knees until his back cracked and then stretched out and rolled to his feet. It didn't look as easy as it should have. 

"I'm not saying anything." He couldn't. If he let one more word out he would be ripping Jack until the blood flowed, just because someone had to pay. 

Jack rooted around in their pile of packs. "I can hear you anyway." He pulled out an MRE, ripped the tab and cupped it in his hands while the catalyst heated it up. 

"Then you know what I'm thinking." 

Jack slurped down whatever was in the MRE package with no appearance of tasting it at all. He carefully squeezed it flat and began folding it up. "Do we have anything that can hold off a mothership?" Jack asked conversationally. He folded the package twice more. "Do we know of anything short of a small nuclear bomb that can destroy one?" He kept folding. "Do we have any means of delivering a bomb that we can get through the gate? Have we ever managed to defeat a single ship other than by sheer, dumb luck?" The square of foil in Jack's fingers about a half inch on a side. He folded it over again and shoved it into a vest pocket, then looked at Daniel. 

"That wasn't what I was thinking," Daniel said. Jack just raised an eyebrow. 

But only because Jack had thought of it first. 

When they were ready to get moving again Jack called everyone together for a quick briefing. 

"Liammak's a canny guy. His back is against the wall, but he doesn't know it yet. It's our job to make sure he doesn't feel that way, because he could be dangerous when desperate." He waved a hand, Vanna-like, in Daniel's direction. 

Daniel picked up his cue. "He's just reacting as he would to an attack by bandits. There have been no real wars of aggression here in anybody's lifetime. Their natural reaction is too grab the valuables and hole up and wait for the bad guys to get bored and leave for richer pickings. As far as he's concerned that's just what's happening." 

"I'm not sure about that, Dr Jackson." Harris volunteered. "He seemed to take the Jaffa's message pretty much to heart." 

Jack grimaced. "Teal'c, what kind of a time table do we have here? Was that just some First Prime mouthing off to the greater glory of Shiva, and maybe some day next century he'll get around to claiming this planet? Or should we be looking overhead right now? 

"It is because of the terror raid that I believe the threat to be real, and imminent. We are in Goa'uld dominated space. It will be no more than days before the first ha'tac appears." 

"We're going to have to assume that we're in hostile territory." 

"But sir, won't that just convince them that we're the enemy and make them more resistant?" 

"We don't _act_ like it, we just remember that that's what _is_." 

Presumably that made sense somehow. This was not going to be easy. Easy for Jack maybe, to say one thing and feel another, Daniel thought snidely. Jack could be charming to both Air Force brass and aliens that Daniel knew he despised, but the one thing Daniel had never known Jack to be was ingratiating. That, Daniel realized, had always been his job, though one he had never been comfortable with. Maybe Jack overestimated Daniel's ability to grovel merely because it exceeded his own. Personally, Daniel thought the two of them were equally matched in stubbornness and arrogance. 

But right now, today, what Daniel could see was that Jack was tired, way tired. Not tired and bored and playing at being obnoxious to keep himself and everybody else on their toes. Just - tired. Drained. His reactions were a shade late, his comebacks too slow. 

This was not good. They couldn't afford to have Jack at sub par for this. The rest of SG1 could pick up the slack for each other for a while, but for certain things, like life and death decisions, they needed Jack. And this looked like it might be one of those situations that were coming far too fast and frequently these days. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

The road followed the river through a canyon. Here and there at bends in the road were rough stone pillars about 5 feet high, every one broken at the top, the broken edge blunted with years of weathering. The steep sided hills were covered with a scrubby purple bushtree, and higher up the tops were dusted with snow. When they came out of the canyon they were in a broad flat valley, the river winding through it down from higher hills beyond. There was a cluster of gray stone buildings, surrounded by walls and pens, along the river where it shallowed over stony ground, about half a kilometer away. A pennant flapped on a staff in the pounded dirt at the village gate. The gate was open, and a knot of men was visible beside it. 

Jack got out his binoculars. "I don't see any of our people. Nobody in BDU's at any rate." 

Major Griff tried his radio again, but there was no response to his call. 

Jack handed his binoculars to Teal'c, who squinted through them one-eyed. "I believe that they have seen us, but they do not appear alarmed by our presence." He passed them on to Daniel. 

The group resolved into a dozen leather-clad men with crossbows. Beyond them in the afternoon shadows behind the gate were some indistinct figures in bright colors. 

"I don't think they're expecting a fight, Jack. Those look like women standing behind the open gate." 

Sam shook her head when Daniel held the binoculars out to her. "I'll take your word for it." 

Jack put his sunglasses back on, took his cap off and put it on again. "Okay, everybody, let's do it. Safeties off, but don't go waving your weapons around. We're here to ask politely to take our friends home." 

Daniel fell without thinking into position at Jack's left shoulder as they started down the sloping road to the gate of Panduk. Sam was to Jack's right and Teal'c just behind her. Daniel could feel the comfort of their presence without knowing exactly what it was he was noticing. SG-3 followed a few paces back, slighting flanking them. Daniel's palm kept brushing the butt of his sidearm as he consciously tried not look like he was resting his hand on it. 

As they approached Daniel could see that the group was expecting them. Standing in front was an unarmed man in the typical Jengiaun dun leather coat, but his was embroidered heavily and gaudily along the hem and edges. The dozen men behind him were armed with bows and the local crude musket, but none were drawn or cocked and primed. 

Liammak had changed not at all from Daniel's memory. His hair and beard were still black, though Daniel remembered him as being years older than Jack. He was wiry and slight, like most of the Jengiauns, with dark, expressionless eyes. 

When he saw the group awaiting them, Jack paused, and a strange expression crossed his face. His whole stance changed, from alert to relaxed. He tilted his head to one side and strode across the space to meet Liammak, almost bouncing. 

"Hey, Liammak!" Jack stepped forward, his hands outstretched, conspicuously away from his P-90, in what looked like a natural gesture of friendship. 

"O'Neill," the other man responded, coming forward. He clasped Jack by the wrists in a stylized gesture, and Jack returned it after a moment's awkwardness. 

"I hear you've been taking care of our people. We're here to thank you, and to offer our help." 

"Your people have fought off the raiders who destroyed Siuk-sa-Miet. That is more than thanks enough." 

Where did he get that intel? Daniel wondered. Refugees? Runners and scouts in the hills? 

"Nevertheless, we are grateful for the hospitality you have shown them." Daniel came forward. He hoped they were going to be grateful. 

"Very grateful." Jack was being straightforward, no joking or sarcasm in his voice at all. "Now let's talk about how we're going to keep the raiders from coming back." 

"With your help, I am sure that we can defeat them, if they try to fulfill their threat." 

"That's what we're here for." 

_We are?_

The Jengiauns around the gate were nervous, understandably so, but they didn't feel hostile. Most looked happy to see them, though subdued. 

Liammak as well, though nothing touched his eyes. "It's a long road from Siuk-sa-Miet, and you must eat, and then we will talk." He smiled, and welcomed them, and seemed quite sincere. 

Jack agreed, and Daniel agreed, in slightly more flowery language, and everyone relaxed, just a notch. 

They walked through the gate into what felt more like a big farmyard than a village. The open plaza was crowded with pens of animals, with wandering livestock, and with clusters of Jengiauns, probably refugees from Siuk-sa-Miet, sitting purposelessly in clumps. They were led across the open space, through a gate in a low wall that kept most of the animals out, and up to a large, long building. Unlike the rest of the structures in Panduk it had deep carved eaves, and its whitewashed walls were intricately painted. But the paintings were faded and scuffed beyond decipherment and the carvings of the eaves were blurred with age and the remains of generations of birdsnests tucked into them. At the door there were more people and this time, thankfully, they could see the familiar color of an SGC uniform, sticking out amid the dun and gaudiness of the Jengiauns. 

"Dr. Fahd," said Sam, the first to recognize the slight young man in front. 

"Hi Sam, good to see you. You too, guys, Colonel. SGC to the rescue as always." Fahd had been a civilian consultant at the SGC even before Daniel had been recruited, working on materials analysis of the Stargate's composition. Now he was the chief scientist of their geological studies, with almost as much gate travel as SG1. 

"Glad to see you're looking...well," Jack said blandly. 

Liammak smiled slightly. "Your friends have come as you promised they would. We will eat in their honor." He gestured to a couple of women standing in the shadows of the porch. "Wytu and Byssi will show you where you may rest for a while." They stepped forward, their eyes downcast. They both looked much younger than Liammak and their black hair was braided with the heavy gold rings of married women of wealth. His wives? No, probably daughters-in-law. 

"We'll go see to our people first. Then food." Jack smiled back at Liammak, but it didn't reach his eyes either. When Liammak nodded and departed down the long side hall, not only the two women, but two of his guards remained behind. 

"What's the situation? How are our people?" Jack asked in a low voice, as Fahd led them down the opposite corridor 

"Fine, Colonel. No casualties except for a couple of sprains and general bruising from running away at top speed in the dark. What about you and SG-5?" 

"SG-5 had a rough time. Kohler is dead. I left Major Takashi back at the gate. We haven't seen any trouble since we got here yesterday. Are your people able to travel?" 

"Certainly. We've been treated very well." Fahd glanced back, and went on normally though in a slightly lower voice. "If it weren't for the guards and the rather heavy insistence that it's not safe for us to leave, I'd say that we were honored guests." Not a stupid man. 

"Ah." Jack drawled. "We'll have to work on that. Getting you and your people back safely to the SGC is our first, main, and only mission objective." 

"I see," said Fahd. What he saw didn't make him happy. "I see," he said again. "I'll keep my people from getting in your way. They're a little traumatized right now. Most of them didn't _really_ believe in the Goa'uld threat until they were being hunted by Jaffa. They're just civilians, despite the training we've given them." 

Fahd caught Daniel's eye and the two of them shared a look. _Not like us._

As they threaded through corridors and halls and across windy porticoes, Daniel tried to decide if Panduk was built as a manor farm or a summer retreat. Maybe both. There were wings to the main building that looked as if they had once been summer pavilions, with huge windows and deep verandas framed by carved pillars, but they had long since been subdivided into barns for the local version of cow. The hairy, bony, overly horned animals poked their heads through stalls framed by ornate carved lattice-work, chewing their cud and eyeing them dubiously as they hurried past. 

They ended up in one wing that hadn't been converted. The open window frames still had their shutters, lowered against the wind and cold. The SGC personnel had been well housed, given that the rest of Panduk was overcrowded with refugees. There were some rough tables with oil lamps and candles, braziers to heat the unheated space, and thick piles of rugs for bedding. But the room was cramped for 9 people, and they were tired and anxious, and crowded around the new arrivals, wanting to know when they could go home. 

Daniel didn't know any of them beyond their faces and a few names; they were all Sam's colleagues, not his. Something about Jengiau's orbital mechanics and mineral composition produced the most fascinating geo-magnetic currents, with all kinds of theoretical benefits for learning how to tap the Earth's own magnetic flux. Sam had been bursting with enthusiasm for a research base when they had made their initial report. For his part, Daniel hadn't ranked P4X-822 very high on the list of Must Go Backs for his little sub-department of the SGC that dealt with archeology, anthropology and other human studies. Human population of Sino-Tibetan origin, approximate transplantation date 2000 BCE, no gate use in living or legendary memory, no legends of glowing-eyed gods, no signs of alien influence, current cultural level estimated at very late pre-industrial. There were dozens just like it. 

So Sam's scientists got their base to study the fascinating (he'd take their word for it) geo-magnetic currents. On what was supposed to be a safe, harmless post. 

Jack was doing his 'show the flag' routine. He smiled a lot and spoke at least a word to everyone, all the while checking them over, assessing and evaluating. Sam kept with him, making sure he got all their names, prompting and encouraging, the good second in command. Teal'c stayed at the door, studying the guards as if they were young Jaffa in need of training. 

Wytu tugged at Daniel's sleeve. He could barely make out what she was saying, her face was so hidden behind her heavy embroidered sleeve. It was time for them to leave and meet Liammak for the evening meal. 

They were led back the way they had come, across the entry, and down the opposite hall. In this wing the windows in the heavy walls were small and shuttered and the rooms were lit with lamps hanging from the flat carved beams overhead. It was blessedly warmer. 

They sat around a long table with Liammak. Jengiauns came in and out on some business or other, crossing in shadows beyond the lamps. Some stayed and sat in the darkness against the walls. No one minded them. Liammak's hall was apparently open to all. The visitors were served by Wytu and Byssi, while Liammak's wife, Sonpak, sat in a furcovered chair in a corner, her grandchildren trying to stay quiet at her feet. They kept bobbing up to get a better look at the strangers. Two younger men, Liammak's sons, stood behind him, and after they had finished serving, Wytu and Byssi joined them. 

The dishes were heaped with some kind of lilac-colored boiled grain, sprinkled with pea-sized red things. It tasted like couscous, only blander. Liammak barely touched the dishes, and Daniel realized that the meal was for their benefit, that sharing it with them was a sign of amity. 

When politeness had been served, Liammak signaled his interest in talk. All around in the shadows from the lamplight Daniel could see the faces of his family and dependents, listening intently, shushing the children when their murmuring grew noisy. 

"O'Neill, who are these raiders, who came through the Siuk-sa-Miet? I heard them promise to return in greater numbers, and after seeing their will to destroy, I retreated here to make a refuge against that time. But you say you can help us fight them." 

"We can." Jack put his elbows on the table and leaned in. "We know these Jaffa. We know their tactics. Teal'c here was once one of them himself, before he decided to join us and fight them instead." 

Teal'c bowed his head ever so slightly. 

Liammak eyed him carefully. "Their weapons were more powerful than ours. How can we fight them with our lesser ones?" 

"We can give you better weapons." Jack's sincerity didn't waver. "If you saw SG5 fighting the Jaffa then you saw what our weapons can do." 

"They were powerful. You will give them to us?" 

"Yes." The crowd in the shadows murmured a little. Jack's fingers started sliding and tapping on the table top. "We have been fighting these Jaffa for many years. We need allies to help us. Now that they have found a way to your world, you can help us, by stopping them here." 

"Their leader spoke of flying ships coming from the heavens. I no longer think such an idea is foolish. When I was young I raided the coastlands, plundering the enemies of Chun. We took silver, cloth, n'tal, and slaves. But there is a price for everything, and some harbors were too costly to attack, no matter what riches they sheltered. What is the wealth these raiders want from us? They took nothing, merely destroyed." 

"They are after slaves, in a manner of speaking," Daniel said. "They will die without human hosts, and their armies, like the men who attacked here, are slaves themselves." 

"How then do we make these raiders leave?" 

"You said it yourself. By making this place too hot to handle. With the weapons we can give you, and with help from our soldiers, we can inflict enough damage and casualties to make them look for easier pickings." 

_If only it were that easy. How can Jack say all this with a straight face?_

Liammak looked thoughtful. 

"Look," Daniel broke in. "We know it's going to be a long hard fight." _I can't believe I'm saying this._ "It will be dangerous too. We can evacuate you and your people, keep safe those who are non-combatants." Jack barely glanced at Daniel out of the corner of his eye, but it was a moment of gratitude for picking up the ball. 

"No. I am not so old that I cannot fight those who would destroy what I have gained. If once you give in to bandits you have lost the edge of strength." 

Jack looked knowing. "But we will have to get our people home," he added. "They'll be in the way. They're not fighters. If you have people you need protected at all costs, send them with us." 

"Through the ring." 

"Yes." 

"The Jaffa came through the ring, like you did. How will you prevent them from returning?" 

"We have directed the action of the ring, like you direct the water in the irrigation canals," said Daniel. "It only goes to our world, for as long as we can keep it open." 

Sam added her own earnestness to the argument. "But when we can do that no longer, and there is a time limit, the only way to close it is to bury it." 

"How then will you be able to support and supply us?" _Damn him for being so canny, so smart. Damn._

Jack leaned back, the picture of relaxation. Looking at him one would think that the whole negotiation was a done deal. "Burying the gate is what we'll do after we've driven them off, and persuaded them not to return." He actually looked round the table and smirked at that. "You kids know what happens when someone tries to go through a buried gate. Bugs on a windshield. Splat." 

Liammak might not get the reference, but he understood the implication. 

"I see," said Liammak. "You have fought these raiders like this before?" 

"Many times." Jack was like nothing he had ever seen before, an exterior like glass, all sincere, all false. He was too smooth to be real, and Liammak must have known it, yet there was no seam, no crack in his demeanor. Maybe this was exactly what Liammak expected of diplomacy. 

"And defeated them?" 

"Yes." 

"Yes." 

They didn't look at each other. 

"Our own world is free of them," Jack said. 

Daniel added, "We drove them from Abydos." 

Jack bent forward again. "Look, you know how it is. We have to keep quiet or people will riot. We're getting our people out of here, and those who are important to keeping things going. It might take awhile before we can organize a counterattack. You're a leader, a commander, sometimes you have to make those tough decisions that some just aren't going to make it." 

_He's too loud,_ Daniel thought. _He's overplaying it._

Daniel chimed in. "You know how important Jengiau is to us. The knowledge we'll gain from here will be invaluable to us in our fight against the Goa'uld. " 

"We will return to Siuk-sa-Miet with you". 

Jack looked mildly concerned. "Until the Goa'uld are driven off, it's safer to stay here." 

_Thank you, Jack,_ Daniel thought. _At least you're remembering the reality for these people._ Then he thought, _Maybe he's right, maybe Liammak just wants to continue using our people as hostages._

"Yes, that is true. But the armed men are needed where there will be fighting. And I know that the weapons you speak of cannot be free. We must discuss our terms of trade for them." 

"I'm afraid I can't speak about that. That will be for my own commander to determine." 

"Then I will talk to him when we get to the ring." 

"Good," said Jack. 

_Now we'll be traveling back with an armed escort 3 times our number, effectively prisoners._

"We'll leave tomorrow then." 

"No, the day after. I must make sure Panduk is guarded and prepared." 

Even this check didn't change Jack's calm surface, but Daniel could see his hand under the table beginning to pull at a splinter, digging into the wood, unconsciously. 

"Fine. We can use the time to see where we can give you the most help. " 

"We can talk over our strategies tomorrow. Rest tonight, guests of my house." 

Liammak rose and bowed, hands clasped. Daniel returned the courtesy before Jack could get to his feet. "Thank you, Liammak. Your shelter honors us." 

They were watched as they left, anxiously, suspiciously, eagerly. Behind them they could hear the solemnity of the Jengiauns break up, voices raised now in discussion and laughter, lightened by the knowledge that they now had allies who claimed to be both clever and powerful. One of the smaller children scooted around Teal'c and careened into Jack, pursued by Byssi. She scooped him up, shushing and scolding, but smiling up at the tall aliens while she did so. Jack glanced down at them, then away. His pleasantly vague expression became even more fixed. 

Wytu led them away to another courtyard beyond the old pavilions and barns. The wings here were built like the main hall, with thick stone walls and low beamed roofs, and from the look of the bales and chests piled under the heavy eaves they were currently being used as storehouses. Or had been, until some space had been cleared out for guests. 

Jack looked across the courtyard, through the gate back toward the main buildings where a couple of men armed with crossbows were even now bolting it and setting up a patrol. He tilted his chin and glanced at Sam and Griff. Sam shrugged and Griff scowled. The precautions were certainly necessary, even praiseworthy, but just as efficiently prevented them from arranging any secret meetings, or escape, with the rest of the SGC people. 

They were given tiny rooms, bare and clean, like little cells, opening off one long corridor. Sam got the first one all to herself. Teal'c and Griff the one next to her, Harris and Olberg further down past several bricked up doorways, and Daniel and Jack the one across from Sam. Daniel changed his mind again about the origins of Panduk. It might have been a monastery once, before the conversion to summer house and then farm. He wished he had asked more questions about the religion of Jengiau. What were the meanings of those carved faces on every beam, who had built this place and when, and why had it been transformed? 

The doors all had crude bars and locks on the outside. Daniel resigned himself. Maybe Liammak meant well, maybe he didn't. If SG1 had all been unarmed petitioners, would he have treated them with the same politeness? Or would he have used them to bargain with Hammond? Daniel couldn't tell how much Liammak knew or suspected, or even what he was capable of. He hadn't talked to him much 4 years ago, leaving that to Jack while he collected his information from the city scribe. 

It was even colder inside the room they were given. Piles of felts and blankets for bedding were heaped on brick platforms against the walls. Wytu hurried out and came back with an armful of quilted robes as well. She was apologetic, in a quiet, dignified way, that her hospitality was not what they would have been shown Siuk-sa-Miet. But the reason for using these rooms was clear: there was a wall stove in the corner of each one. 

She bowed and left, closing the door behind her, and Daniel pushed at the door, just to make sure it hadn't been bolted, then peered out into the passage. No guards, no bolts on the doors. Nothing but the bone chilling cold of all stone buildings. He ducked back into the illusory warmth of the cell. 

The charming, decisive Jack O'Neill was gone. 

He had wrapped one of the quilts around his shoulders and was crouched down in front of the stove, poking at the fire inside with a stick from the pile of kindling. Smoke wandered out, heavy and faintly greasy-smelling. 

"Stop it, Jack, you'll just put it out." Daniel toed the stove grate shut, then picked up their vests and gear and laid them out in easy reach on the bench near the door . 

Jack looked up at him. "It's too damn cold. We'll have to sleep right here on the floor to get warm at all." 

"I hope not. There are probably flues from the stove running through these benches, and when they heat up they're used as beds." 

"Yeah, right, a _kang_." Every now and then Daniel was rendered speechless by some fragment of unexpected knowledge from Jack. "Except I don't think that this yak dung or whatever they're using for fuel puts out enough BTUs to heat a cup of coffee, let alone these piles of bricks." Jack wrapped his arms around his knees and dropped his head, and Daniel hurt at the strange, sad image. 

Jack still had the stick he'd been poking the fire with. He slowly dragged it back and forth across the uneven floor tiles, scratching aimless patterns in the faint dust. When he spoke his voice was light and lifeless. "You know, those Jaffa didn't come here at random. Hammond told me that right after we went through the gate Freyr stopped by the SGC for a little chat. Just an FIY that they'd told the System Lords about our base here, and oh, by the way, that didn't make it a protected planet." 

Daniel had no trouble figuring the rest of it out. "And by the treaty the Goa'uld are allowed to subjugate them, since our presence makes them a technological threat to the Goa'uld." 

"Yep. We promised them that we wouldn't harm them. What that really means is they should have killed us on the spot." 

The gate was only a small doorway. Here on Jengiau, looking up at the sky, every star was a threat. Pyramid ships would come and they would, quite literally, block out the sky, fall on the earth like mountains, crushing everything. The Goa'uld knew this world was here, and some Goa'uld now said he wanted it for his own. The Jengiauns had no idea. 

"So there's nothing we can do." 

"Not for Jengiauns, no," Jack agreed flatly. He ran his hands over the front of the stove and jerked them back. "But we might get all of our people home safely. That's the best we can hope for." 

"It is? That's not what we did for Nasya, or Argos, or Edora. " But that was before the destruction of Tollana, and the scattering of the Tok'ra, and the new standoffishness of the Asgard. Before they had lost all their early hope of, if not a victory over the Goa'uld, at least a guarantee of safety in a universe that was proving every day to be utterly indifferent when it wasn't actively malignant. 

"I know." Jack rose out of his crouch, slowly, and Daniel thought he could hear the grind and click of abused joints shifting into place. 

"Are you hurt?" 

"Naw. Just feel like I'm about 200 years old." Jack shed the quilt onto the kang and sat down on it. He looked as if he had just stopped, like a toy that had run down, and his eyes had that expression of doubt and pain that Daniel hated. 

He wanted to take away Jack's pain. He had wanted to do that almost from the moment they had met. At first it was simply because Jack's pain was so harsh and disturbing, a constant threat and danger, and Daniel was impatient with him. Couldn't the man just can it and repress a little? Did he have to bleed so conspicuously over everybody else? He wasn't the only man who had ever suffered. 

But Daniel's life on Abydos had taught him something about attachments and loss, and when he returned, Jack had changed as well. He had done just what Daniel had wanted at first, repressed and hidden the pain, considerately and politely covered it over with reticence or humor. But Daniel knew it was still there, and that was almost worse now than the harsh openness of before, Jack's shameless desire to be put out of his misery. With every year Jack got better at pretending nothing hurt him any more, and Daniel got better at seeing what a lie it was. And Daniel only wished, had wished for the last 5 traumatic years, that he or someone or anything could ease Jack just a little, so that maybe Daniel could find some ease himself. He was angry at his helplessness, and at Jack's intractableness. They should know each other well enough by now that Daniel could find _something_ he could do that Jack could accept, something that would help. What were they pretending for? 

It was very cold. He was so tired, all his muscles ached. And if he was hurting, what must Jack be feeling, after having walked nearly 60 miles in the last 36 hours with no sleep? 

Jack sat with unnatural stiffness. With the false animation sloughed away he looked exhausted, all the lines in his face carved deep and shadowed. Daniel was moved by some horrible, tender ache behind his breastbone that was totally inappropriate to be feeling for Jack. He put his hand on Jack's shoulder, curled his fingers around the back of his neck, meaning just to mirror what Jack occasionally did for him, a friendly, comradely pat. 

He could feel Jack's tension through the layers of jacket and shirt. His hand stayed still on Jack's shoulder, and Daniel sat down beside him. Their deception was a weight hanging in the silence between them. But how easily they had done it, supporting each other's stories, deflecting suspicion and doubt. 

And now, strangely, it was so easy to do this. 

His hand moved to the back of Jack's neck and he tried to cover the skin with the palm of his hand, running his thumb up the muscle at the base of Jack's skull, where his own headaches often started. 

"Ow." Jack jerked. "Feels like you're driving your fingers into my skull." 

"Sorry. I'll stop." 

"Don't," Jack said, and rolled his head back under Daniel's hand. 

Daniel shifted position to use both hands and rubbed along the join of neck and shoulder, probing with his fingertips. The muscle was hard as bone, rigid with knots. He kneaded it a little. 

"Ow! Jeez, that hurts. Stop it, you're just making it worse." But Jack didn't move away. "Just don't push so hard." 

Daniel rested his hands on Jack's shoulders, feeling useless. 

"Hey, it's okay. It's the warmth feels good, that's all I need," Jack said. He looked sideways at Daniel. "I'd call up room service for a heating pad, but you'll just have to do." 

Daniel slid his hands under Jack's jacket, down to the neck of the t-shirt. Jack didn't complain, didn't tell him to stop, didn't crack a joke, just bent his head forward . That was all wrong, as wrong as Daniel's need to do this. Jack relaxed the tiniest bit, and somehow Daniel's fingers were pushing aside the loose necked shirt, and resting along the bare skin. Jack's skin was very soft, and that was wrong too. It was too easy to feel something, the pulse and life, flowing through that thin soft skin into his hands, running up the life lines to his heart. Jack rolled his shoulders and neck, and his stubbled jaw brushed the back of Daniel's hand with a rasp like a cat's tongue. 

There was something terrible about Jack's vulnerability. It reminded Daniel of his own, and of his own weaknesses. But all Daniel could do for Jack was give his touch. Just the warmth of his hand on seized muscles. Rubbing gently across the nape of the neck, between the shoulder blades. Just enough pressure to transmit something of his own warmth into Jack. This was something Daniel could do, because he knew just how it felt. And he hadn't the strength to let anyone know his weakness either. 

They sat there for a while, Jack slumped and his fingers finally quieted on the twig he still held loosely, while Daniel pressed the warmth of his hands into his neck, shoulders, back. It was gentle, and peaceful, this not quite intimate contact that rested Daniel's heart where words couldn't. And so surprisingly easy. 

The bench they were sitting on definitely felt warmer. 

They rolled up in the quilts and robes and found out that the kang only worked on one side, so they crashed out together. 

Jack slept all through the night. Daniel knew, because he didn't sleep at all. Mostly, it was because he was lying on a hard brick bench wrapped in several layers of small quilted robes that had tangled around both of them until he couldn't possibly move, or extricate himself from the intimate entanglement with Jack's arms and legs without freezing himself and Jack. That was it, he told himself. _'Some must watch while some must sleep'._

He watched the darkness, listened to Jack's breathing, and thought about how easy it was to lie here with him. He had done this hundreds of times before, they had slept and waked together, and with Sam and Teal'c on so many worlds, but he had never thought how good in itself this was. To feel Jack lying next to him, alive, was to be alive himself, another thing he had lost without ever knowing it, when he had lost Sha're. 

He dozed at last, and woke to the sound of birds screaming outside the window. 

That morning, with Sam and Teal'c, they went prowling. Teal'c had relented of yesterday's disapproval, and was now a constant, solid, support. They wandered around Panduk. The locals were busy settling in for the winter and making space for the refugees. Wytu was in charge of the work to be done on the main building, ordering gangs of workmen around with an authority that belied her demureness of last night. There were more rooms to clear, stores to move, animals to find pens and barns for. There were men by the village gate collecting and distributing a motley assortment of weapons. 

Jack looked that over. He took off his sunglasses, glanced at Daniel and Teal'c, and started rubbing his sunglasses on his jacket. It was clear that there was little to prevent them from collecting all their people and leaving as fast as possible for the gate; nothing but the fact that that would make them appear to be liars and betrayers, and make them vulnerable to attack by vengeful Jengiauns. Instead of merely being liars who were saving their betrayal for the last possible moment. 

Daniel shook his head, defeated. Jack squinted, clearly steeling himself for what he had to do, then put his sunglasses back on. He strode over to the villagers, the picture of concerned curiosity. He listened with every appearance of sincerity to Panduk's headman, Zara, and his plans for defense if and when any alien bandits tried to attack. They had 100 score of quarrels for the crossbows, and 30 men to cover the walls and use them. That would take care of any bandits until an army could return and drive them out. Jack smiled and clapped him on the back. Daniel looked Zara straight in the eye and managed a weak shrug that implied that it sounded good to him but what did he know, he was just a scholar. Teal nodded with superb gravity and gave off his aura of total probity. Zara beamed, relieved and pleased. Damn, they were good. 

Zara took Jack off with him for the full tour of Panduk's defenses. Jack threw a questioning look at Daniel, but Daniel wasn't going to follow. He couldn't add anything to the military angle. He wandered back into the courtyard of the compound and found Sam and Fahd going over Fahd's checklist of what he'd managed to escape with from the Base. They looked busy, and he moved on. He found a place at the end of the storehouse veranda out of everyone's way, and hauled a couple of chests around until he had made a place to sit and something to make do as a writing surface. 

He felt antsy. The industry of the Jengiauns only emphasized his own feelings of pointlessness, and worse. Daniel got out his notebook and read his old observations. On this fucked up mission he was their diplomatic and sociological expert, so he really ought to start acting like one. _P4X-822. The natives we have encountered in this part of Jengiau are not particularly warlike. They are sharp businessmen, but are only used to protecting themselves against brigands and outlaws._ He wished he could have found the notes from the Base staff, but anthropological observation had not been their purpose. He couldn't remember any field reports about 822 crossing his desk in the last 3 years. The geologic information had been all that the SGC was interested in. No technology, no naquada, trinium or other natural resources unobtainable on earth, and no Goa'uld influence. They would probably never have gone back had it not been for the geomagnetic flux. Daniel's first contact notes were all the professional analysis the culture and people had received. He was no expert on Sino-Tibetan cultures, still less on their prehistory. 

_The natives are familiar with deceit and subterfuge. They are not violent, and can probably be cowed by show of force, but are likely to retaliate in kind as soon as they are able. The culture is honor-based and shame-driven, so care will have to be taken not to allow the leaders to lose face._

He'd forgotten he'd written that. He'd couldn't remember now what it was that had prompted that observation. Not very well written notes, he mentally downgraded himself. 

_Their religion is not deistic. When I asked what the temple was for, I was told that is was a place of communion with 'shishnk', a word root that seems cognate with some Siberian languages words for spirit, or otherworld. But I was also told that 'shishnk' was present in certain places, that it sometimes manifested itself in natural phenomena, and that it could be added to(?)._

They didn't know about the Goa'uld. That had been all there was about Jengiaun religion that Daniel had needed to know back then. He had never seen the broken carvings on the road up to Panduk, never known that there had been a monastic tradition. He hadn't known if there were nomads in the mountains, or what was different in the towns and villages downriver from Siuk-sa-Miet. There were 4000 years of cultural development on this planet, and all that was going to be left of it would be the skimpy notes of a not terribly interested Egyptologist who had seen everything then through the lens of his personal grief and obsession. 

As opposed to now, when he was forced to see everything through the lens of utility. It was actually a lot easier this way. He didn't have to feel that sick disappointment every time they found a new planet where there was no chance of finding Sha're, or of finding something that would free her. Now he had the opportunity to judge new worlds for their scientific interest. And of course, their usefulness to the defense of Earth. 

Daniel bit on his pen and stared at the pages. He flipped to the back of the journal and stared at the blank pages there. What was the point in writing anything about Jengiau at all? Within a week the Goa'uld would come, and if Teal'c were right, and about the Goa'uld he always was, in a month there would be nothing left but ruins and corpses and a few cowed and weeping slaves. 

He wouldn't be involved. Though it would be interesting to see the cultural responses to a paradigmatic upsetting of the Jengiaun world-view. Like being able to watch the Spanish conquest of Mexico at first hand. Cultural decay and the acceptance and embrace of the culture of the conquerors. What Teal'c had said: that they would worship the Goa'uld as gods, even if the Goa'uld had to teach them the concept of 'god'. The Goa'uld had all the power and all the will. The Jengiauns would have no choice. 

The last page was still blank. 

It was a long day. His hiding place in plain sight was so good that nobody bothered him, or maybe he was giving off those 'Keep Away - You Bother Me' signals Jack teased him about. But as the hours wore on there was nothing to do but watch and observe and record the actions of people who didn't know they were going to be dead in a week's time. The tension grew between his shoulderblades until his muscles ached from it. 

Jack showed up eventually. He had gained an entourage of Jengiauns, including Liammak's two sons, and was smarming everybody in sight. The kids loved him, the scavenging dogs let themselves be petted without snapping, and the men looked respectful. It was really kind of offputting. Jack's pleasant expression never faltered. It was so un-Jack as to be unnerving. 

Something seemed to have been settled to the satisfaction of Liammak's sons. They bowed to Jack and left, taking the rest of the crowd with them. Jack actually returned the gesture correctly. He must have been getting a lot of practice. 

Jack came over to where Daniel was sitting, looking down at him, then abruptly snapped his head around at the sound of a sudden rumble and squeal, eyes scanning the empty sky. He caught sight of two women cranking the winch on the courtyard well, blew out his breath and dropped down to sit beside Daniel. The chest wasn't very wide and their shoulders touched. 

"God, I hate this." He pulled off his cap and sunglasses and there was Jack's familiar bleakness. 

"You seem to be doing very well. They all love us," Daniel said bitterly. He dropped his pen onto his open journal and watched it blot. 

"Yeah. Used to be my job." Jack rubbed his face with the heels of his hands. "Sneak in, make nice with the locals, promise them anything to get their help, and then God help them when we were through." 

That was news. All Daniel really knew about Jack's Special Forces past was that he had been in Iraq. A few pennies dropped into place. Iraq. Kurds. Massacres. Oh. 

But the knowledge didn't make him feel compassionate. "I'm surprised they let you do it. Why didn't they hire in some experts?" _Like me._

Jack let his hands fall away. There was a sick look on his face. 

"'Cause it's not hard. You just need some basic people skills to figure out how to say convincingly, 'Hi, we need to exploit you for a while'. And timing. A sense of timing helps. Don't wanna be around when the shit starts to fly. Shit, blood, parts of people you knew. Can really ruin your day. Make the mission look bad if your timing sucks." 

"Jack..." 

"Hey, don't mind me. It's just the cost of doing business with the USAF. Or the SGC. Whoever. Us. Me." 

"Yeah." Daniel's anger died suddenly. He rubbed his shoulder against Jack's, just to feel them touch again. Jack took a breath, blew it out, and closed his eyes for a moment. 

Daniel flicked his index finger against the pen and rolled it across the open page. Jack's hand flashed out and stopped it from falling. He rolled it back. Daniel repeated it. So did Jack. 

"Brain the size of a planet." Jack's mouth twitched, and the sick look faded a little from his eyes. 

"Hey, you're the one with the pain in all the diodes." Daniel snatched up his pen and pocketed it. Jack's weight was heavy against his shoulder. Daniel leaned into it, supported and supporting. 

The afternoon drew in. They saw Byssi across the courtyard and stood up, recognizing that it was time to start the charade again. 

"Here we go," Jack said, his hands restless and unnatural without the weapon they were searching for. 

It was a repeat of the night before, but this time there was food to approximate a feast. There were sour red fruits or vegetables like very tough tomatoes, and flat soft lilac-colored bread with a curd-like white jelly to spread on it. The centerpiece was something with an exoskeleton and way too many legs, like a giant purple shrimp with teeth. 

Liammak wanted to discuss strategy with Jack. 

"The Jaffa I saw did not die like normal men. They got up and walked away even after they had deadly wounds." 

"The Jaffa carry an animal, a symbiote, inside them. It gives them great strength and power of healing. To kill a Jaffa you must open his belly pouch and kill the symbiote." 

"And their masters, the Goa'uld?" 

They all looked at each other. 

"Just a little different; the symbiote's in the back of the neck. They're pretty strong, but they don't heal as fast. Cutting off their heads always works. " 

"Uh, right, sir." Sam loyally tried to back up her CO, but her factual mind was having difficulty following Jack's half-truths. Teal'c, wisely, didn't even try. But Daniel knew exactly what Jack was doing. 

It was excruciating. Jack kept bringing up all the Goa'ulds they had killed. Daniel invented details about their deaths, mining every scrap of Egyptian history and folktale he could remember. Why wouldn't Jack just shut up? But Liammak and his people hung on all their words, and Daniel feared desperately that they were taking them all to heart. 

Daniel went back to their cell numb. When he looked at these independent people he could see Abydos, and what their fate might have been, and how thinly they clung now to their freedom. All a fluke. 

Jack was sitting on the floor, feeding the fire, and staring into it. He tilted his head back acknowledging Daniel when he entered, but he didn't say anything. 

"Are we going to have problems with Liammak's guard tomorrow?" Daniel asked. 

"No. Maybe. They're well trained, they won't act without his word. He might still try something though, he's capable of it." 

"It shouldn't be happening. Not to them. They didn't do anything." 

"No. It shouldn't." Jack slammed the stove shut. "But that never makes any difference." 

"I'll be okay," Daniel said, though Jack hadn't done anything but look at him. "I'm not the one going to have a breakdown. I'm a lot tougher than that." 

"Yeah, I know you're tough, Daniel. Just don't be -- too tough." Jack sat down next to him and for some reason leaned against him, and Daniel for some reason automatically eased himself around so that Jack could use his shoulder as a back rest. "When I was a kid my dog, the first one I even had, got hit by a car. I was oh, about seven I think. It was bad, there was nothing the vet could do, so he put him to sleep. I'd known that dog all my short life. I wanted to cry so much, but I wanted even more to be tough. So I tried not to show it, how much it hurt, and it worked; if I didn't show it, I didn't cry. That was when I first learned how not to." Jack slumped further down Daniel's shoulder. "How not to react to what I felt. It was a good trick. But it was a pretty rotten thing for a kid to learn." 

"But you still got another dog." 

"Every kid deserves to have a dog, Daniel." Jack said softly. "It's that thing about unconditional love." 

Daniel dropped his hand onto Jack's head, sliding down across his hair, like petting. Jack was hurting, and being Jack, he could only be oblique about it. Daniel knew what that was like. All he could do was this strange petting, comforting through useless touch. It was weird, how Jack didn't move or protest or joke or say anything at all about it even. 

The stillness made it easy for Daniel to speak. "I was allergic to dogs and cats when I was little, but my foster parents thought every kid should have a pet, so they got me a rabbit. He wasn't very smart but he was mine and he trusted me and I loved him." He was still stroking Jack's hair, and Jack had sprawled so far down his head was nearly resting on Daniel's thigh. "He got sick eventually and stopped eating, dying of something, I don't know what. The vet didn't know either, he just said that rabbits were delicate and these things would happen. I was holding him when he died." 

The rabbit had been trembling in his hands and nosing at his fingers, then suddenly he felt a spasm in his palm, and all trembling had stopped. 

Jack didn't say anything, but his hand dropped onto Daniel's leg and rested there, warm. 

"I remember exactly what I felt. Tremendous grief and anger, but I knew that there was no point. All the feelings in the world wouldn't change anything. They hadn't kept my parents alive and what was a dumb little rabbit compared to them? So I just put him down and walked away. I never had a pet again." 

Jack's head was in his lap now. Daniel kept petting him, stroking down Jack's arm, repeating the motion over and over. Jack's eyes were closed. His right hand lay loosely on Daniel's thigh, and his thumb moved back and forth, his fingers curling and uncurling, echoing Daniel's motions. 

This was so like their connection, the one that didn't need words. He could will warmth and rest into Jack, and pull the same out of him for himself. He rested his palm on the hollow of Jack's shoulder. 

So what did he feel about Jack? It didn't matter what he _felt_. All that mattered was what he could do. Jack sighed and touched Daniel's hand with his own. "Leave it there. It helps a little." 

Daniel couldn't see Jack's face, but he could feel the vibration in his fingertips lying along his neck. "Thanks," Jack whispered, and this time Daniel could feel nothing. Jack rolled over further, almost onto his stomach. Daniel slid the palm of his hand along the back of Jack's neck and let it lie there, warm and heavy. 

What he felt about Jack. He felt he needed to do this. Jack was wasted. He needed rest and he needed peace. Human contact was supposed to be good for that. He'd discovered that it was good for him, so it would be good for Jack too. So that was what Daniel needed to do. If he had known Jack would allow this he would have offered sooner. They were friends. That was what he felt. And Jack was more important than just as his friend. 

Daniel ran his hands up his back from waist to shoulder blades, until the bunching of the jacket stopped the motion. _That's good. That's better. Just pressure, that's all._ Jack twisted around and out of his jacket. Daniel moved closer to make up for the loss. Jack's face was turned toward him, eyes closed. There was no relaxing of the lines there; in the dim slanted light they were deeper than ever. Even in rest, especially in rest, Jack carried the reflection of pain. Daniel stroked down his back with the heels of his hands and Jack rolled his shoulders under the touch, so that Daniel could feel the muscles slide and the bones shift even under the clogging layer of cotton. 

What he felt about Jack. For Jack. He could do him more good if he could feel what he was doing. His fingers caught under the hem of Jack's t-shirt, and he pressed his palms against his back, onto the narrow muscles bordering the spine. 

_Oh. I never knew I could do this for him. If I had known he would let me... Maybe it was good that I didn't know, that I didn't want this touch between us all the other times we've hurt._

It was like a shell around his heart, drawing his heart into his skin, spreading a shelter around him and Jack. Within and between them was life, and all outside the feel of their flesh and breath was empty dark. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

They got on the road early the next morning. Some refugees decided that it would be safe to return with such a well armed group. They left Panduk in a company of nearly 100. 

Nobody liked it. A party this size would be the most obvious and tempting target for any new attack. Jack was as nervous as a cat, and moving unnaturally as a result of trying not to show it. Daniel was giving himself a stiff neck from stopping his usual whiplash turn to check out anything unusual. Teal'c, who knew best what to watch out for, was also the one most used to this kind of sitting duck march. Sam just focused on the SGC people. 

The SGC people were anxious to get home, and kept up the pace uncomplainingly. So did Liammak's guard. The refugees began to straggle after a while, and Daniel wasn't really sorry to see them slowly be left behind. They would actually be safer this way, at least for a little while. 

Still, they moved more slowly as group. It would not be until late on the second day that they could expect to reach the gate. Nearly a week since the first Jaffa had announced the coming doom. 

In midafternoon they took a break. They had come out of the river canyon and entered the flat, inhabited plain. Jack and Liammak agreed on an hour's rest before pushing on. 

Daniel went down to the river. He walked along the river, along the sand where it had sunk into its bed, pushing through the twiggy things that looked like willows overhanging the banks. Jack was sitting against one of the trunks of the willowthings, overlooking a riffle in the water. His eyes were closed and he might have appeared to be sleeping, but Daniel knew better. He crunched up the bank and crouched a few feet away, looking in the direction Jack was facing. Circles broke on the surface of the water in the smooth stretches over the riffles. 

"No fish," Jack said, without opening his eyes. 

"Oh." Daniel watched another circle break, and a lumpy shadow wiggle beneath the surface. "There's something in there." 

"Those giant leggy shrimp things. They eat everything." 

"Why don't you take a nap, Jack? I'll wake you when we have to move." 

"Can't." 

"Can't why not? " 

"Too tired." Jack's mouth twitched minutely, a spasm of irony, then relaxed a bit. Daniel crouched there next to him, until he could see Jack's breathing deepen and slow. Then he folded his legs beneath him and sat beside Jack, his back against the knobby trunk. 

Jack leaned against his shoulder, not asleep, seeking a softer headrest than the willowthing. Daniel had seen Jack in this condition before, felt it himself, an exhaustion like waking sleep. Behind them, beyond the thin river border of scrub, the noises of the refugees were fading, as everyone tried to rest. 

It was the most natural thing in the world to sit together like this. 

That evening the wind began to pick up again. When they camped they pitched what tarps they had, or could improvise, to block the dust that sifted into everything. Daniel was good at this, from years spent in the deserts on Earth and Abydos. SG1 set up a watch schedule together with SG3, explaining to Liammak that it was bad for discipline and training to forego their custom on any account. 

The night was nearly completely dark. No stars were visible in the sky, murky with high dust clouds. Daniel had the second two-hour watch after Sam. Nothing could be heard but the hiss of wind across the dry fields, and the occasional muffled snap of a windscreen flapping loose. Dust devils whirled up and vanished on the edge of the campfire's light. It was far more eerie than it should have been. Daniel was grateful when his watch was over and he could leave poor Harris to the wind and the dark. 

He stepped around Sam, curled as tight as a hedgehog under her blanket, her back pressed up against Teal'c's. Teal'c was sitting in deepest kel'no'reem, his eyes open but unseeing. Daniel shivered, rolled his jacket and blanket around him, and burrowed up on the other side of Teal'c against the tarp's edge into where he hoped Jack was, but Jack wasn't there. Jack came back from his patrol, moving so slowly, dark against the darkness, surrounding and haloing him with shadow. He crouched down to crawl over Daniel, a movement usually so easy. 

He was aching and vulnerable, and laid himself down as if all his years had doubled their weight. Daniel lay down beside him and pressed against his back, touching Jack's weakness that made him remember his own. The wind died and freezing cold settled down like the coming of winter. Arms wrapped around Daniel, and Daniel gave his small gift back, just touch and warmth. They turned towards each other, and Jack pulled him close. Their faces brushed in the dark. Jack's skin was cold. Daniel rested his hand on Jack's neck, as he had done the nights before. And Jack tucked his head down under Daniel's chin, where Daniel could just feel the warm damp of his breath going chill against his shirt. Jack's arm lay heavy across Daniel's waist. 

The next morning was foggy, cold. The fog never lifted, turning all the flat land and scrubby willowthings in smallness. Pulling around them. Enemies anywhere, and nothing for it but to move to the gate as fast as possible. No edges to the world, all vagueness now. Jengiauns and SGC, purpose and results, himself and Jack. 

There was a weight on his heart all day that he couldn't quite bury. Not yet. Later, off world, he'd forget this feeling of chill and defeat. He would read his notes and remember that he felt it, but the sense would be lost in academic prose. It was better that way. 

There would be no mention of Jack in his reports. Colonel O'Neill would be there as usual, but Jack was part of that weight that the reports wrapped, and bleached, and dried, and buried. 

It was late afternoon when then returned to Siuk-sa-Miet. The surviving inhabitants came out and watched as Daniel dialed up the gate. The murmur from the crowd was awed, happy. It was almost like a holiday. Their saviors would be coming back again the same way. Harris and Takashi shepherded the scientists into the wormhole, then they and the rest of SG5 and SG3 slowly made their way through. Liammak's men did nothing. It was over. Jack turned to Liammak. 

"Thanks. We'll --" The words stuck in his throat. 

"You will not return, O'Neill. I know." Liammak said quietly. He didn't look angry. 

Jack seemed to lose his frame. "I'm sorry, Liammak. So damned sorry." 

"You lie like a Chun." Liammak smiled with his eyes. "But you could not hide your fear completely. None of you could." He paused, then went on thoughtfully. "I believe you to be brave and honorable men. So the threat that you fear must be terrible indeed." 

"We want to help you. Believe me now, we really do want to. But we don't have one fucking thing that can stop the Goa'uld. If they came to attack Earth tomorrow we would be helpless." 

Liammak smiled tightly. "You can still fight. I can still fight. You have explained to me how the Jaffa and the Goa'uld can be killed. What can be killed can be defeated." 

Jack looked bleak. He glanced at Daniel, desperation in his eyes. Daniel understood. 

"Uh, Liammak, you might want to, just in case, uh," Daniel got out his notebook and drew quickly. "The Amber Altar, you know it controls the Siuk-sa-Miet, the Stargate, right? If you press these symbols on the Altar in this order, the Siuk-sa-Miet will open a door to another world, one that Goa'uld don't know about and can't find. It's not very much like this one, but it's safe." 

"Daniel?" Sam asked."What are you --?" 

"Major, I think you and I should let Dr Jackson do his job and finish exchanging cultural information with the local leaders." 

"They are the coordinates to 512, Major Carter." 

Liammak took the ripped out sheet from Daniel. "I thank you for your aid. Maybe some of us will make use of it, but for me, I know where I will die." 

"Come on kids, let's go home." 

Daniel didn't look back he climbed the steps to the gate. He heard Jack's tread behind him, and then they were home. 

Daniel was no stranger to retreats. SG1 spent a lot of time running away from danger. He had lost count of the number of times he had landed on the ramp in a tangle of bodies and equipment as they had hurled themselves into the wormhole and safety. He had been part of retreats under fire, on Abydos, on Cimmeria, on Chulak, under fire, stink of blood and gunpowder and burns, handling wounded and refugees through the Gate, and shepherding them into stunned order and comfort on the other side. 

Not like this. 

His boots hit the ramp with a dead clang. The wormhole disengaged, and the glamorous blue shimmer vanished, leaving only flat fluorescence. Hammond was there, as he always tried to be. "Welcome back, people." 

He'd seen that look on Jack's face before, when they had come back from Euronda. He supposed he had much the same expression on his face as Jack, this time. They all did. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

Somehow, they managed to get through all the ritual of return to the SGC. An assembly line process, first armory, then medical, then the summary debriefing with General Hammond. There wasn't much to say. Mission to retrieve SGC personnel was successful. The scientific base was completely destroyed. No salvage was possible. Return to 822 would be very unwise at the moment. Any further information concerning the Jaffa attack and the Goa'uld they served would be in the reports of Major Takashi and SG5, and in Dr Fahd's additions. That was it. End of Earth's involvement with P4X-822. Hammond wanted their preliminary reports in his office ASAP, and then they were dismissed and on 36 hour stand-down. The ritual held no surprises, washing away the sense and shock of Jengiau with the familiar bureaucratic blandness of routine. 

Daniel showered, changed, grabbed a danish from the commissary and went back to his office. This was not a report he was going to spend any more time and thought on than the barest minimum. _We came, we saw, we got the hell out._ No, that was Jack's style. _We made friends with the locals, who trusted us, even when they knew we had betrayed them._ No. "We accomplished our mission objectives without offence to the local people, some of whom may be inclined to be friendly if we ever return to 822, and if the threatened Goa'uld invasion fails to occur." Now all he had to do was write a justification for such a conclusion. 

An hour later Daniel hit send, then headed down to Jack's office. Sam was lingering in the doorway of the closet sized room that held Jack's desk. She waved limply at Daniel. "I don't know, sir. It's Saturday, and I know Cassie's expecting me, but I'm not sure I'll be good company for a teenager right now." Daniel took up the other side of the door. Jack had already changed into his civilian clothes and was signing their mission report printouts standing at his desk. 

"You think Cassie will notice? She'll be too busy moping and whining." Jack dropped the reports in his out box. "Better not give her any more ammunition. Pissed off teenagers are supposed to be worse than grumpy Goa'ulds." 

Sam grinned, a little forced, but genuine. "Oh, what a sales pitch, sir. I can hardly wait." Jack grinned back, more forced, less genuine, but Daniel didn't think Sam caught it. "See you guys in 36 then. I can always call one of you for backup. " 

Sam stopped off on her office floor, and Jack and Daniel had the elevator to themselves for the long ride up. They barely glanced at each other. Jack fiddled with something in his pockets. Daniel read the safety instruction panels out of habit. Nothing changed here. They signed out with the guard, headed for the parking lot, and then, as their paths angled off toward their separate cars, Jack said "See ya?" There was a plea in the lift of his eyebrow. The familiar jolt of mutuality swept through Daniel. 

"Sure." 

He drove carefully, as if it had been years since he had driven a car. Outside the mountain it was even harder to pull his life on Earth back into focus. The disorientation was worse than usual. Everything was slightly misfitting, in the wrong place, the wrong color, making him resurrect the wrong habits of body and mind. The afternoon sun was bright and hot, but Daniel still felt the chill in his bones, felt the dust still clinging to his hair, grit under his nails. 

Every time he glanced in the rear view mirror there was that stupid green truck, big and obvious, always somewhere behind him. 

He went home, parked, saw Jack pull up, and then, in the reverse of their departure, they wordlessly fell in step together, up the elevator, down the hall to Daniel's apartment. Nothing had changed here either in the six days he'd been gone. The ficus hadn't died yet. The kitchen light still buzzed annoyingly. 

"Want something to eat?" 

"Nah, not hungry. Maybe later." 

Jack didn't want to settle. He wandered around the apartment, peering at Daniel's collection of junk and artifacts as if he had never seen any of them before. Daniel knew the signs of Jack winding down from a mission. When he started pulling out books and thumbing them back to front, Daniel left him to it. He would work out the twitchiness after a while, buried in the unfamiliar and irrelevant. 

Daniel was still cold. He cranked up the heat and took another long, hot shower, just to feel the chill begin to leave his bones. When he came out Jack had landed on the more comfortable couch, Needham's 'Rise of the Middle Kingdom in Thebes' open in his lap, but his eyes were closed and his head resting back almost against the wall. It looked uncomfortable. He opened his eyes and sat up when Daniel came in. 

"They should put warning labels on these." Jack yawned and flipped the book closed. "You know, 'Can cause drowsiness, do not operate heavy machinery after reading.'" He rolled his shoulders, back and forth, like he was trying to shake off something. 

"Needham's a statistician. You want excitement, you should try his field reports. They put _me_ to sleep." Daniel felt Jack's eyes following him as he headed for the kitchen. "You hungry yet? I think I've got some lasagna in the freezer." 

"Yeah." 

Clutching at normality. 

The lasagna was freezer-burned and dried out, but they microwaved and ate it anyway, because it was normal, Earth-based food; and they washed and put away the dishes, because that was what people on Earth did. As opposed to people on Jengiau. 

They hovered around each other, awkward but somehow reassuring. Daniel wanted to tell Jack to go home and get some sleep, but he wanted something else too, some other habit he'd picked up on Jengiau. A habit of what, three days? He wasn't sure he liked thinking about that, that he needed this so readily, that this was the thing he needed. It wasn't a good thing. Except it that it was so good when Jack drifted next to him, and his arm went across his shoulders, and their bodies nudged up against each other, warm and alive and _here_. Alive. 

A tremor ran across Daniel's shoulders. Jack slipped his arm off, but didn't move away. 

"It's okay --" Daniel started to say. 

Jack smiled, so quick it was almost invisible. "Sorry. I'm being selfish." 

"So'm I, and I'm not sorry." 

"Yeah, okay." Jack took Daniel's hand and held it loosely in his palm, almost absently, his thumb skimming Daniel's knuckles, over and over. "But I meant, back there. Jengiau." He didn't look at Daniel. "I needed, I need -- you know." Jack looked up, and his eyes that had been all warmth in the darkness of last night were dark and unguessably deep. 

Daniel gently stilled Jack's fingers, but didn't pull his hand away. "Me too. It's okay. I know. I know what it's like. We don't--" He shook his head and frowned and tried to force words to take his meaning. "Selfish is okay." 

Jack's strange distant look was gone. Daniel couldn't read what replaced it. "Maybe. Sometimes. I don't know." 

"We can't prevent it all happening again. I'm still cold." Always cold. 

"Yeah. It never goes away." Jack touched his hand again, and somehow that was shocking. "C'mere." 

Easier and easier each time. His arms went around Jack and Jack's hands were on his shoulders, clutching at him, fingering him through the cloth, running his hands up and down Daniel's arms. Jack had a stunned look on his face. They stood not quite pressed against each other, still the span of a breath between them. 

They were so close, all Daniel had to do was raise his hand, and touch his fingertip to Jack's grim mouth. He ran it along the thin lips, testing their softness, their resilience, the callused pad of his finger not smooth enough to feel all he wanted. Pressure, but Jack's mouth did not yield. Daniel drew his hand away, spread his fingers wide in a sign of apology for trespassing too far. Jack smiled then, a shy, unsteady quirk of his mouth, and caught the back of Daniel's hand, covering it with his own spread palm. He guided it back to his face, let Daniel's fingers drift against his cheek, let them fall against his parted lips. Jack held Daniel's index finger against his mouth and touched the pad with his tongue. 

And then their cheeks, noses, lips touched, their mouths met and stayed, and it was as new and wonderful and perfect as if they had just invented the kiss. 

The sign that they both needed: given, received, and given. To kiss each other's hands, and lips, and eyes. To kiss Jack's sweet, warm mouth again. It was so startling, the astonishing pleasure of it, that it could be Jack whose strength held him, whose body made him welcome, that Daniel's breath caught in excitement, his heart speeding and slowing in frantic adjustment to his body's new desires. 

He needed this so much, so much more. Burying himself in the cascade of sensation. Daniel dragged at Jack's shirt. Jack pushed his hands away, and skinned out of it in one motion, giving Daniel enough time to strip his own off. And now there was all that expanse of new skin to learn. The strange spring of Jack's chest hair, his dark hard male nipples, the curves of muscle like Daniel's own. 

There was nothing Daniel could do for Jack that wasn't perfect, and right, and a wonder. Skimming his mouth over Jack's collarbone, licking at the smooth, fine skin, and Jack making such sounds he had never imagined, deep in his throat with every breath. That Jack could enjoy his body so, could delight in what Daniel delighted in doing. And there was so much to do, so much to try, licensed now for everything. 

They stumbled against the bedroom door and nearly fell; then stumbled and fell together onto Daniel's bed. 

It was that easy. 

Pressed against each other, Jack tonguing Daniel's ear and throat, raising shivers of heat all down his arms and shoulders and straight to his heart. Of course Jack knew what would pleasure him. 

He rolled away, and over, throbbing and gasping. Jack needed to know what that felt like too. He wanted the taste of Jack again, he wanted to close those beautiful eyes with pleasure, feel the heat he could raise. He draped himself on top of Jack, their cheeks pressed together, the thudding in his chest indistinguishable from the beat of Jack's heart against his. The slide of his chest against Jack's a sensation he couldn't get enough of. 

It was so sweet, to lie together, without expectations, with all promises. It had been so long since he had lain with anyone, with Sha're. Only in dreams. Since he had had the right to skim his palm over another's planes and ridges, impress the warmth and silk and roughness into himself. Since he had moved under his own skin at the touch of another's hand, right at the surface, transparent; and the double layer of skin was the most tenuously fragile of barriers between them. 

And Jack, starved of physical touch for so long, all focused passion and intensity that Daniel had never quite imagined from him. His eyes were hot and desperate and his hands softly greedy. 

Daniel had to have more. He didn't know how he had lived so long without the feel of that strong, warm body against his. He dragged his mouth all the way down Jack's sweat-slick chest, Jack's hands clutching faintly at his head. He smelled wonderful. He tasted wonderful. Like Jack. 

Jack hips twitched and he groaned. Oh, god, what a sound. Jack suddenly rolled to one side and sat up, hauling off his trousers and underwear, fumbling and dragging clothes and shoes and all off into a heap. He was flushed and panting and erect as well, and Daniel had to match him, fumbling with his clothes in his turn. Daniel was hard, had been hard forever. 

And then they were both explorers. Jack's hands and mouth, shameless hands and sensuous mouth, mapping Daniel's chest, and belly, and Daniel burning with expectation, his aching balls and dick. Oh god, so good, that strong grip and stroke, just right, just perfect, and then, the hot wet swipe from base to crown, and Daniel nearly writhed himself off the bed. 

Jack looked up and grinned at him, and then it was Daniel's turn; to try the same on Jack. But he hadn't gotten nearly enough of the feel of Jack's dick in his hand, not nearly enough of its satin surface and pulsing hardness and wild taste, not nearly enough of the alien thrill of Jack spread out, and vulnerable, and _happy_ under Daniel's hands and mouth, when Jack hauled him away. 

Shifting and pulling until they were lying face to face, their legs threaded, their hips surging against each other, until a heavy sweet pulse flowed and thickened in his blood. Urgency faded. Jack sighed and closed his eyes and dropped his head into the hollow of Daniel's shoulder. Kissing his throat, little movements of his lips like words, over and over, tasting the few inches he could reach. Daniel cradled the back of Jack's head with one hand, the other splayed against his spine, forcing them closer. Jack mouthed words against Daniel's throat, and Daniel echoed their shape in his mind. 

They rocked themselves together, clinging to each other, close as possible, skin to skin wasn't close enough. Climbing inside each other, safe, safe, all parts matching. Strength, and sweetness, and pressure, and slide, and wet, and heat and the beating of their hearts; and then the solitary point of ecstasy shuddering through Daniel from groin to heart. But not solitary, because Jack was there with him, holding him, breathing his moans, and when Daniel began to fall from the peak Jack was there gasping against his throat, shuddering in turn, the moment reflecting between them in long, long echoes of fading delight. 

So easy. 

Daniel fell asleep, with Jack's voice whispering beside his ear, but he couldn't make out the words. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

Daniel awoke slowly, comfortably, lazily. His body's aches and pains of the last few days had faded to pleasant soreness. He was warm, and home. 

He lay there for a few minutes, letting the sensations soak in. Sheets still crisp and cool when he flexed his leg; traffic sounds, attenuated into a serene murmur; the faint, pervasive smell of paper and cloth and coffee that meant home; pale light on his eyelids. He opened his eyes. 

Jack, only half covered with the sheet, gray and tousled on the pillow; the warmth that radiated off him where his hip was curved into Daniel's thigh; Jack's breathing, faint and slow and steady; the earthy, sharp, elemental scent of him; his remembered taste. 

He remembered; and he longed for it all again, the same, different, _forever_ , he thought. _Until death._

But the world was not changed. 

Daniel watched Jack for a long time. Then he slipped out of bed and went to take a shower. 

When he got out of the bathroom Jack was still asleep, or pretending to be. Daniel threw on some clothes and headed out to the kitchen. He sat on the couch with a cup of coffee and tried not to think. Not of Jack asleep, the surprising softness of his hair, the reassuring beat of the pulse in his throat, the joy of all asking and all acceptance. Nor of dust and bitterness, and old futility. Memories ghosted away, a dream on smoke of happiness. 

The shower started up eventually, and Daniel went and made another pot of coffee. 

Jack came out, dressed and damp. Daniel met his eyes for a moment and another spark ran between them. Jack gave him a level look and wordlessly accepted the mug Daniel handed him. Their fingers didn't touch. Jack sat down on the other couch and stared into the steam for a long time before taking a sip. The line between his eyebrows was graved deeper than usual. When he looked up his smile was sad. 

"So, I guess we're too tough after all," he said at last. 

"No. We're not," Daniel countered, but he didn't sound convincing. 

Jack stirred his coffee with the tip of his finger, licked it dry, then started stirring it again. 

"I don't want to -- " He didn't look up. "It's been hard to keep it together, sometimes. I can't lose that... I've forgotten how to let, things, things inside, you know..." he trailed off. He looked past Daniel, out the windows, seeing something that made his mouth thin. "I'm not a kid anymore." 

Daniel couldn't remember being a kid at all. But he knew the feelings all the same. 

Jack sighed. "I want to, but I can't - if I do, if I open it up, I'll bleed to death. So I can't." He put his coffee mug down and spread his hands, offering, asking, Daniel couldn't tell. 

Something was building up inside Daniel. The feeling was very strong. It took some time to find it: a deep surging pressure that whited out his heart and blood and filled his bones with familiar clarity and emptiness. 

"I thought I was strong enough," Daniel heard himself saying. 

"Not me. Not any more." Jack's eyes were tender and warm, and empty of hope. It was his most familiar, unguarded look, the one that Daniel had known for so long he had forgotten what it meant. 

Daniel wanted to say the words, but they were only breath. Touch was only flesh. He had nothing strong enough or deep enough to reach between them. The moment had passed. Probably long before this morning, or last night, or when they had gone to P4X-822. 

It was peaceful, and hollow, the absence of all hope and all desire. 

"I should get going." Jack collected their mugs and took them to the kitchen, came back and lingered. 

"See you later then," was what Daniel said at last. Friendships were tricky, delicate. Sometimes these things happened. 

Jack let go, reached for his jacket slung over a chair. "Sure. Briefing's at 0900 tomorrow." Jack smiled at him, the cool, ironic smirk that meant nothing like what it appeared to be. "Where we get to justify our existence to the DOD bean counters again." 

Daniel groaned. "Oh shit, I forgot. Didn't we just do this act for them a couple months ago?" 

"They still don't like us very much. I can't imagine why." Jack headed to the door, looked over his shoulder, raised an eyebrow. Daniel frowned and cocked his head and shrugged. They were okay. Coping. 

The door closed. Daniel wandered to the french doors, looked out over the balcony. Jack came out of the building, foreshortened, small, slight, a little stooped, a little slow. He paused outside his truck, zipped up his jacket. His head turned, up and back, but the motion was aborted before Daniel could glimpse his face. Jack slipped on his sunglasses, got in, and started the engine. 

It was so easy, so obvious. Daniel wondered why he hadn't figured it out long ago. 

He stood at the window watching Jack drive away. He understood completely. 

Just another one of those things he and Jack had in common. 

Sept 2001 - May 2002 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Keiko, from beginning to end.


End file.
